Another of those weeks when very little made sense and, once again, the catalyst was Alan Shearer. There he was surrounded by adoring press doing his best to look like a Messiah (albeit a pro-tem Messiah) and in reply to a tame question admitted he had taken the job because a friend had said to him how would he feel if he didn't take the job and Newcastle managed to stay up.

This was odd. Surely the point of being a Messiah/Hero to the Geordie nation is that you take on the role because you could not live with dodging your destiny and Newcastle being turfed out of the promised land. If your nation, be it Jewish or Geordie, can be saved by a stricken Joe Kinnear or interim Chris Hughton there really is little call for a Messiah. With one answer Shearer had revealed that this whole exercise is all about Shearer and very little to do with Newcastle. He, and his brand, couldn't live with someone else receiving credit for something he might have done so he graciously/grudgingly agreed to do it for however many hundreds of grand a game. Once again it is all about Shearer. If he succeeds he is hailed; if he fails he can say like so many false Messiahs before him, "if only I had had the time".

The Shearer brand is based on the Shearer look and it was in evidence as he cased his many friends in the press room just reminding them, if such a reminder were needed, that it would be unwise to stray out of line. He even tried it on the fans, perhaps trying to stare down anyone tempted to put in an early critical call to 606. It is very similar to the look that Alan Sugar employs from his stacked chair as he surveys his boardroom full of nincompoops and it is probable that Shearer used it in his job interview.

Big Al has the brand, the look, the patented goal celebration but he doesn't have the medals to back it all up. In fact he only has a single medal (1994-1995) for actual achievement and a host of gongs for mythical achievements (Overall Player of the Decade, Outstanding Contribution to the Premier League and the rest). Ruud Gullit was on to something when he told him he was "the most overrated player he had ever seen", even if it cost him his job. It is also notable that the Geordie that Alex Ferguson regrets not signing most is the rickety and unreliable Gascoigne rather than the creosoted Shearer, and not signing him has never cost him his job.

Shearer's appointment will automatically improve Match of the Day and thereby allow the BBC to increase its advantage over its only terrestrial competitor as ITV's coverage continues to be hobbled by an over-reliance on one man. When they have a slot to fill the call goes up "Where's Andy?" and, having located the tagged Townsend, the cameras are dispatched to do the show right there with Andy and whoever else is around. So it was that Wednesday night's "reaction" programme featured Andy and drinking buddy Graeme Le Saux and someone who I assume must have been an autograph hunter and had been roped in at the last minute to do a bit of linking under the obviously cod name Matt Smith. How else to explain a discussion on "Being Wayne Rooney" which possessed not a shred of sense and Smith's perpetual use of the phrase "at international level". As in "you can't waste chances at international level" whereas, I suppose, at national level, as the career of Shearer attests you can waste as many as you like and still be judged to have made the "outstanding contribution".